Fast Peel‐Off Ultrathin, Transparent, and Free‐Standing Films Assembled from Low‐Dimensional Materials Using MXene Sacrificial Layers and Produced Bubbles

Abstract

Ultrathin, transparent, and free‐standing films assembled from low‐dimensional nanomaterials (LDMs) are promising for various applications, including transparent heaters and membranes. However, the intact separation of the assembled films, especially those with controlled ultrathin thickness from deposited substrates, is a tremendous challenge, particularly for fast peeling off via self‐detaching. Herein, we propose a versatile method to rapidly peel off ultrathin assembled LDM films, including three types of carbon nanotubes, vermiculite, Ag nanowires, and carbon nanotube@graphene, by dissolving the MXene interlayer from the layer‐by‐layer filtered MXene/LDM Janus films using diluted H2O2. The MXene sacrificial interlayers play dual roles, including physical isolation of LDM films from filter membranes and the production of bubbles that buoy ultrathin LDM films, making them free‐standing. The integrality and self‐detaching rate of the LDM films are determined by the loading and reactivity of the MXene interlayers. The intact LDM films can self‐detach in 80 s by dissolving the optimized MXene interlayer and producing bubbles. The as‐made free‐standing ultrathin LDM films can be transferred to arbitrary substrates and exhibit outstanding performance as transparent heaters. This scalable method provides an efficient and versatile method to produce ultrathin, transparent, and free‐standing LDM films and finds new applications for the growing MXene family.

Electro-capillary peeling of thin films

“…Article https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41922-2 Although many approaches have been proposed to detach thin films from the substrate [22][23][24][25][26] , the electro-capillary peeling method is fundamentally different from them. First, the electro-capillary peeling had a distinct detaching mode that achieved thin film detachment by driving the liquid to percolate and spread into the bonding layer under electric fields.…”

“…However, traditional peeling methods, including the debonded strip 20 and blister method 21 , have difficulty satisfying the needs of practical production at these scales, especially for fully attached micro/nanofilms. Based on practical applications, several strategies have been pursued to manipulate the conditions for detaching the micro/nanofilm from the substrate, including hydrogen bubbles evolved at alkaline water electrolysis for graphene on the metallic catalyst 22 , drying-induced peeling for colloidal films 23 , water-soluble chemical bonding layer 24 , and the reduction of surface adhesion modified by chemical/physical approaches [25][26][27][28] . Generally, these peeling strategies exploit modifying the bonding layer's properties between the film and substrate.…”

Two-Dimensional Molecular Brush-Based Ultrahigh Edge-Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanosheets for Ultrafast Potassium-Ion Storage

“…Carbonaceous materials are particularly considered one of the most promising candidates owing to their low cost, high electric conductivity, and stable physical and chemical properties. Commercial graphite, although electrochemically active to Kion insertion, suffers from a limited capacity (278 mAh g −1 ), poor cycling stability, and inferior rate performance [21,22]. Heteroatom doping, especially nitrogen doping, has Batteries 2023, 9, 363 2 of 11 been demonstrated to be an efficient strategy to break through the capacity limitation of carbonaceous materials [23][24][25].…”